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• Sunglasses, $8.
• Hat made out of old NYT, $30.
• Becky acting gangsta’, PRICELESS!

(Becky pretending she doesn’t like hugs is all a game.)

This is my attempt at packing.

So… back to packing.

No, seriously.

I thought my days as a photographer were over when I left NYC (after attending SVA for Photography). Aside from starting and running a top-notch retouching company, I mostly did model tests (for Women, Click, Supreme, etc.) – which was awesome. I also did a few spec shoots for magazines. One story, styled by an amazing stylist, Carlos Nazario, is finally getting published!

Check it out under the “Style” section at http://pushit-magazine.com/.

Actual printed copies should arrive in a month or so.

Perhaps I’ll pick up the camera and do some portraits again. :)

• Google Quick Search Box is pretty nifty. I sure hope it becomes the stable Quicksilver I’ve always dreamed of.
  
• My new mixer arrived, the Allen & Heath xone:4D
• I stayed awake till 8am one night playing Quartz Composer.
• I think I drank a lot of espresso that day.
• At least it was a good roast.
• I started making some abstract digital art and will be having a gallery show at the beginning of June. 5 x 3 foot canvases look amazing. I’m also going to open source my Art – it wouldn’t be 2009 without GPL’d binary files on flash drives attached to the back of art. My signature is the only part of the art I won’t GPL.
• Last month I was really sick. I had some infection in my colon. I went to the ER three times. For christ’s sake I’ve never been that sick.
• Then last weekend I got food poisoning/flu again. Frick.
• If you live in Detroit, you should come hear me spin at Operation Open Decks

Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you all for making my life, and especially this year, exciting, enlightening and special – and, for visiting my site, it’s ridiculous that you all actually ready this stuff ;)

I want to say a special thanks to:

My wife, who has been indescribably supportive, loving, and beautiful.

My parents. I have no words to describe how amazing you are to me.

All my friends, you have been really amazing this year, thank you. (Dean, thank you, especially.)

To Automattic, it’s been great working with all of you. You’re talented, smart, and have enlightened me so much already.

I don’t know what it means to take a breath. It’s something I’m learning I need to do more often. A lot of family and friends are calling me to ask whats up. And, I’m realizing, I don’t talk to the people that live near me as much as I should – they have email, alas. There is some sort of bell curve shape to communication, with frequency and length of communication as variables. I’d draw a nice chart, If I had enough time. :)

So let’s recap and take a breath. January, I got engaged, to this really amazing woman. July, I married her. July 14th, I started a new job. The end of July we went to Hawaii. The middle of August I went to SF. September is already over and I feel like I’ve done nothing but glue my behind in a chair. October 4th I move into a new apartment (in Canton). The middle of October I leave for company business in another state. It’s good to be busy, but I’ve been far too busy.

After then, for everyone that I’ve been out of touch with, I promise we’ll spend more time together.

Sexy People is a newish site posting some ridiculously retro and sometimes unbelievably unbelievable pictures of “sexy people.” One of my favorites, Tzen… total pimp.

via SEXY PEOPLE: Tzen.

This should probably be labeled under TMI. But I feel that this series of entries may be able to help many individuals out.

- – -

I was planning to lay this down in one concise article, but things are progressing too quickly and the facts are too diverse. So, in a multi-part series, I’m going to be detailing my medical history, explaining the clusterfuck that is the modern hospital, medication, insurance, and the real answer to our longevity. I’m not a medical expert by any means, but have always had a love for the body’s biology.

Fact: our genes are mutable.
Fact: 46% of Americans take at least one prescription drug daily.
Fact: we have the technology and knowledge to decode our genetic makeup on an individual basis.

My history:

That’s my background. You probably didn’t want to know, but what I’ll describe in the next few installments may save your life – it saved mine.

An attempted layman’s explanation:

Let’s start with my symptoms. Dysautonomia: compromising, POTS, mitral valve prolapse (MVP), heart palpitations, premature heart beats, general tachychardia, and all the fun stuff that comes along with that, depression, anxiety, etc. It’s tough to swallow, but the nervous system is one delicate beast. Brilliantly engineered to constantly balance, but throw one variable out of whack and the whole system flips on its side.

What is dysautonomia?

Basically, it’s an imbalance in the conscious and unconscious autonomic nervous systems (parasympathetic and sympathetic).

What causes it?

Genetics. Stress. Anything can cause it, really. What we’ll find out is that, your genes and previous medical encounters play a huge role in the serverity, frequency, and duration.

So, what can you do about it?

The basic strategy that any doctor who acknowledges the disorder will do is presribe medications to counter-act any bad things. A betablocker to slow down your heart, lexapro for depression and fainting (vasovagal syncope), and klonopin to “reset your clock” and slightly stone you out.

My next thought was: so, why do I still feel like crap? “Cause your trying to cover up the real problems with drugs,” was my only answer. The drugs brought my day-to-day life back to a semi-acceptable norm, but not something that would allow me to function at the level I felt was acceptable.

And, like magic, I stumbled upon a certified cardiologist who didn’t mind thinking outside the box.

More to come…

All in part to an offer I just couldn’t refuse, I’m now part of the Automattic team. I’m very excited and very honored to be working with such an awesome team. I’ll be working on top secret projects (and some not so top secret projects), pushing pixels, flipping bits, and bringing my insight to all that I can.

Most of you (that’s you Mom) know Automattic through their work on WordPress and Akismet.

Taken with a Canon G9

From some notes scribbled at the pool:

The sound of ocean waves hits you the moment you open the door. Like a wash of relaxation and solitude you soon realize that you are indeed being bathed in not just sonics but lifewaves of a very different kind of energy.

You go to bed, partly from exhaustion, but mostly from the hypnosis of the visual and sonic landscape that you have been drenched in.

Your first day begins in a bath of pure happiness. It was the first time you awoke rested in years – years! You grasp for a clock, yet realize that they have been removed from the room. Your watch, resting in the bottom of your carry on bag reads 8. You are awake and rested at 8am. (What has gotten into me?)

–

Leaving wasn’t painful, as I knew that I would go home with the one I came to relax with: my new and wonderful wife.

• I’m now on a plane headed for the pacific rim. You will not see me or hear from me for 6 days.
• Dean blogs!
• Stefan Sagmeister is my hero. His TED talk was great. His book “Things I have learned in my so far,” is amazing. Here’s an article about him.
• I got married. It was the happiest day of my life. Pictures are forthcoming.
• I got a new job. I’m extremely honored. I’ll explain more, when I’m not busy sipping coconut juice and eating fresh pineapple while the natives give me hot stone massages.
• Draplin vs. USA I can’t explain how close I feel to these words. I mutter this stuff every day.

And she couldn’t be more beautiful, smart, and loving…

Thank you all for your support and love. It’s going to be one wonderful day!

This also means I’ll probably be off the radar for quite a while. See you then…

With my wedding just a week and three days away, I decided to show off the hard work we put into our letterpressed wedding invitations. You can check out the writeup and pictures over here at eight6.

I wrote this a month or so ago, and never published it.

We live in amazing times. Just amazing.

The internet has blessed us all with the power to communicate with each other. It took a while, but we finally realized that the internet doesn’t have to be all about cats and animated gifs. Even though, those are still two very popular topics.

Not just geeks are on the net anymore, either. I just learned, Kanye West has a blog… and it’s probably actually HIM blogging on it! Not to mention he has a Vimeo account (”suck on that Flickr,” says Vimeo founder j/k)! BTW, Kottke, who I rubbed the wrong way many years back, alerted me to all this, on his unimaginably popular blog.

After watching this video, how can you not love the internet?

We’ve finally learned that there is more to life than “me” and that the “we” is what makes the world go round.

The internet does have a heart. It enables us to do some really amazing things.

Recently, along with Coudal Partners, 37Signals, Metafilter, Happy Cog, Iconfactory, Core77, Daring Fireball, Emma, Business Brickyard, and skinnyCorp, I got to help kids benefit from your filthy gambling habit. My design studio eight6 donated $1000 to buy some books for kids, by matching your donations.

I’ve always been unnaturally excited to help others. Being able to do that through my work, is gratifying. eight6 is heavily focused on helping the world and it will always be a core part of who I am and what my company represents. It sounds “deep,” and kind of corny. But it’s pretty simple. We build and design things (usually websites), using design to clarify communication and in return, help make good things happen.

In the next few months I’m going to be launching a program to help loving geeks help the world become a better place, just by doing what they do. Sounds interesting? I think it is. It will be an experiment, but an interesting and, hopefully, a fruitful one.

I get to marry her, in 44 days approximately. :)

I think I rock the morning look quite well?

And the nephew, he’s much bigger now. And, even cuter!

I’m getting married July 5^th (two months from today), To this beautiful woman (yes, that’s me on the right, her on the left, :P)

Our invitations are getting letter-pressed. I’m giddy.

During some blurry years from 2003 to 2006, I attended The School of Visual Arts, for photography. It was an amazing time in my life. Unfortunately, it caused me to stop blogging and start being an assistant to a fashion photographer who was repped by Avedon’s former agent, and then started a retouching company with said photographer. Too many parties, a few nervous breakdowns, and enough beautiful models to make a man die happy later, and here I am; finally realizing that beauty is usually just skin deep, and doing what I love, designing things. (I’m still an insane fashion fanatic. I openly admit to buying Vogue Italia. I have a mid-90s fashion magazine collection that rivals many.)

During my stint at “Art School,” all the freshmen would usually get really into one of the classic photographers, Avedon, Cindy Sherman, etc. Cartier-Bresson was one of the most referenced. For what he calls “The Decisive Moment.”

“There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

Henri Cartier Bresson

Today I ran across a lego reproduction of one of Bresson’s most infamous photos “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare.” Pictured side by side below:

The Lego™ rendition is genius. But, the original, is a classic, if not a tale in itself. The photography, is said to have been staged. He still clicked the shutter, but only after many tries. Or so goes the legend.

If that’s true…

Henri wasn’t just a photographer, but an brilliant self-marketer. He created a “brand” around himself. He built upon this idea of “Henri” being in the right place at the right time, all the time. People thought and still do think, he was truly a photographic GENIUS.

Cartier-Bresson knew his audience. He was a masterful photographer, but beyond that, he truly understood what his audience wanted. They wanted to believe in magic and coincidence and fate. He gave it to them. Maybe, even if it was decisively.

[picture of lego guy via clusterflock via coudal]

In fifth grade, and subsequently when doing a stint at Wayne State University (and losing my mind as a 20 year old) I wrote papers on Fraunhofer lines.

Oddly enough, Eric brought it up on his blog, or at least in a roundabout way did.

Fraunhofer lines are the spectral lines in the light emitted from an object.

With just these lines, you can determine what elements are in the object emitting the light.

It’s an aura, for the stars.

I got a B+ on both papers. My astronomy teacher said it was the only paper he read all day, that wasn’t crap. He was a nut.